Adamant Blood

As Mark walked over to the dessert table, Isoko was there with him. Mark was glad she was nearby, though it was probably a ploy from her grandmother. They really seemed to want him in the Villain Program. Mark had needed to fend off some pink woman —Mark already forgot her name— who was all about the Hero Program and how rich it could make him and how much fame he could get, but Mark wasn’t interested in money at all and fame… Mark was pretty sure he had enough of fame already. He’d already be rich as a monster hunter, too, and...

“Oh,” Mark said, as he bit into chocolate-covered ice cream bites.

Isoko had her own bites, and her eyebrows went up, too. “These are so good! What are these?”

Mark asked her, “The Hero Program wanted me to not like them, didn’t they?”

Isoko laughed once; a single surprised burst. And then she looked at Mark, pretending offense. “Nooo! Are you saying the Hero Program isn’t filled with absolute heroes? Noooooo!”

“Okay okay. Thank you very much. You can tone it down.” Mark looked around some as he stepped away from the dessert table, asking, “So who shows up next— Ah.”

Mark spotted the next person before they arrived.

He was a shortish guy, wiry and thin. Or maybe Mark’s estimation of people was still off because he was taller now; he was still trying to get used to that change in perspective. The guy was brown-haired and skinned, and he had a weird hue to his eyes. Maybe brown, but maybe amber?

The guy came right up to Mark, saying, “I’m up next. Eliot Cybersong. You want to go kill monsters on a training mission?”

Mark’s eyes went wide. And then he smiled. He had checked on the possibility that he could go on a training mission sometime soon-ish, about an hour ago, when he had spotted Orissa at the party. He said, “Yes. I want to do a training mission. Do you know where? When?”

“COFR assigns them as they become available. So far it’s just you and me—”

Isoko said, “I’ll go with you.”

Mark had been about to suggest that very thing. He nodded. “And Isoko.”

“Good!” Eliot said, “Then we’d just need a Mind or Arcane, but maybe not. I’m an Arch, but I can do pretty much everything a techmind can do, just without the actual mind-tech interface. Technology is good like that.”

Mark eagerly asked, “What is a Man-made Manipulator, anyway?”

Eliot paused, not ready for Mark’s enthusiasm or else reevaluating something; Mark did not know. And then Eliot said, “Do you know what a Manipulator is? The category at all?”

“So I read up on that stuff, yes, but the idea still doesn’t make sense to me. A Natural works along personal understandings of the world and a kinetic works on their specific physical thing. How is an Arch-type Manipulator any different than a Natural?”

“Well…” Eliot paused, then began, “A lot of people would tell you that each Kinetic, Natural, and Arch are pretty much the same, and that’s kinda true, but not really true at all. The difference has to do with the nature of magic itself. You know how all spell casting is based on imposed rules on the world? And how a mage taps into those rules to cast magics? Those rules are imposed by demons and the Stone God and Risen AI Malaqua, though Malaqua is a recent addition to those old rules. The basic magics were already in place for a very long time, due to the demons.

“Malaqua solidified understandings in a large way, parceling out stuff into the Body, Kinetic, Mind, Natural, Arcane, and Arch directions, and thus he repaired the Veil and separated the Two Worlds once again, yadda yadda, history schmistory.

“A Natural uses their own understanding of a weird thing in order to work in weird ways, which is a bending between mind and soul. A witch sprinkling herbs together in a stew and calling it a healing potion works because they say it works, because they believe it works. Naturals have a large range because they’re all rather airy.

“A Kinetic takes their own understanding of a specific, tangible thing, and then uses it as a physical extension of their astral body.

“An Arch takes the demonic-soul-impositions on the world and manipulates them and all their attendant physicality and otherwise, with their astral body. Arch powers don’t obey personal understandings at all, but I can stretch those imposed understandings a bit with some physical action. And that’s probably the easiest way to explain the whole thing.”

Mark smiled a little. “Ah. That makes a lot more sense, then. Thank you.”

“Anyway!” Eliot added, “As for myself: I like people and being around people, and I hope to be quite famous someday, and if I have to trudge through a whole lot of monster guts to get there then I will. How about you?”

Mark thought that all rather direct, and perhaps a bit too direct, but people were watching so it was best to be clear about these sorts of things, he supposed. Mark said, “I want to be ready when needed and in the meantime I will act to save as much humanity as I can.”

Eliot tried not to stare, as he asked, “How do you feel about being famous? On camera for the world? ‘Cause I have drones and I scout with them and I also splice videos about all of that together afterward.”

Mark paused. “… Like the Hero or Villain Program?”

“More like a standard bard from Daihoon, actually.”

“Oh!”

‘Bard’ was a very different thing entirely. Mark had almost no experience with any of that, but he knew, vaguely, that bards were historical record keepers and storytellers, more than they were people looking for popularity and money. More ‘adventurers’ but without the bad connotation of that word; they fit in every type of group in order to bring that group’s story out into the rest of the world.

Mark said, “Neat! Do you have a channel already?”

Eliot grinned. “I do, actually.” He took out his phone and tapped away at it. “I think my mother informed you that I was grounded because of a little thing with spiders… and… There!” He turned the phone around and handed it over. “As you can see, I was never in danger at all.”

Mark looked at the video for a moment, watching as Eliot sliced through some spiders with fishing line, or something, as a graphic overlaid the video explaining his Power and what it could and could not do. Mark raised eyebrows at that. He looked for the guy’s channel name and views, and found them as ‘VeryHuman’ and 20,000 views. He handed the phone back, saying, “I’ll have to watch the whole thing sometime later. Do you have much experience moving between groups of people on Daihoon yet?”

“I got out of Curtain Protocol just months ago so I’m still making real connections, but they’re getting made. My main idea is to sign up with the Slayers, with COFR directing me toward problem areas and stuff like that.”

Mark grinned a little. “I’ve heard a lot about the Slayers. They’re rather unbeholden to any great power but still respected, unlike adventurers.”

“It’s pretty much exactly what I want, so unless I get a whole lot of better offers then I’m probably going that way,” Eliot said, glancing around.

Mark chuckled at that. Eliot probably would get better offers after this. Maybe someone would try to do an end run on Mark through Eliot, which would be interesting—

Eliot asked Isoko, “How about you, Isoko? What are your great plans?”

Isoko shrugged, and said, “I’m going into the Grand Guard. I’ve got family in Crytalis, and the plan is to do patrols and maybe meet a nice guy. The opportunities for advancement practically anywhere in Daihoon are fantastic.”

Mark smiled at that, jumping in, saying, “Why is Daihoon doing it so much better than Earth on that front, do you think? Because that’s what I’ve heard, too. Anyone can just go out and clear land and secure a city and it all just sort of works out.”

A pause.

Eliot wasn’t sure how to answer that question, or where to go with it.

Isoko shrugged. “There’s not a single part of Earth that isn’t spoken for, that some individual culture is not trying to reclaim from the monsters. But Endless Daihoon is only 500,000,000 humans in three major Empires and only two of those Empires are fully independent while the third is just happy to play nice with everyone. And it’s Endless Daihoon.”

Eliot said to Isoko, “Yeah, that’s most of it. But the larger part is that they’ve been fighting wars with the monsters for 5,000 years, so they know what to do. People on Earth still make mistakes and die to monsters, so they made the whole hero/villain stay-in-the-cities thing and we kinda stabilized around that. We’ve got giant cities, though, so there’s a lot valid with that strategy.”

Isoko said to Eliot, “We could clear Earth of monster if we wanted, but we don’t because the people who can take the land and secure it are stepping on the toes of older generations who still hold onto those old borders because they want to, even if they can’t defend them at all.”

Mark nodded a little.

Eliot said, “Aside from the fact that those old borders still exist because it was the one ‘best’ way to prevent World War 4, by making no one able to challenge borders at all, the monsters attack all the time and constantly come through everywhere, so I do not agree that we could clear Earth of monsters if we wanted. They just pop up sometimes. That’s why we have border walls and City AIs that constantly check everything. The powerful people need to stay where they are to keep the land we have secured. If everyone scattered to the winds we’d have 25% of the population of Earth just die because they can’t defend themselves properly, and the return of monarchies and shit like that, like they have over on Daihoon.”

Okay. Those were valid points, too.

Isoko said, “We could absolutely glass parts of the planet and turn it into plains, ensuring that nothing grows but prairie grasses. Slimes would pop up, sure, but it’s better than other options.”

Mark was surprised at that suggestion. “Really? And just kill all of the life out there in the woods and elsewhere?”

Eliot said, “It’s all full of monsters anyway, but yeah; that’s an extreme solution. Very Okuanan.”

Isoko said, “The Dominion of Okuana has some good points about killing everything and then reseeding biodiversity to inhibit monster growth.”

Mark asked, “Can you really do that? That ‘inhibit monster growth’, I mean.”

“Oh sure,” Isoko said, “The Church of Hearthswell does that all the time. Though that’s more ‘inhibiting spawning’ than ‘growth’.”

“Okuana does enchanted trees in forests. Hearthswell puts enchantments on city walls,” Eliot said. “That secures cities pretty well from tiny Veil breaks. Without those we’d just die.”

Mark nodded. “With her Castellan, right? To organize the land in certain directions.”

Isoko said, “That’s the one.”

And then, somehow, Eliot and Isoko got into a conversation about the various pros and cons of using nuclear armaments across the entire planet and then coming back in with proper cleansing magics, and Mark managed to know something about that. Cleaner plants! Those tube-like air-sucker plants that cleaned up the air, and which Mark had used in his studies with Lola once, had special breeds that cleaned up nuclear fallout. The nursery at the Healing House even had some. They were big, neon-orange things, and they glowed brightly in the presence of nuclear radiation.

“They’re pretty small things in the nursery, though. Lola said that they have to be cared for a lot when there isn’t an active nuclear site they have to be used on.”

The three of them had moved to a lawn to the side, to sit in the sun and talk.

Eliot said to Isoko, “Even if there was a truly good systemic solution to clearing Earth of monsters, bombing Earth is not a good idea.”

Isoko was just having fun with it now as she teased the guy, “Everyone should just evacuate to Daihoon for a year or five and then nuclear bomb the entire Earth and then come back later when it’s clear. We can do the same thing to a good portion of Daihoon; just have all the daihoonians come over to Earth for 5 years.”

Mark rolled his eyes.

Eliot laughed. “That’s a great idea! You should save it in your pocket for when you’re making a supervillain speech.”

“Grandma already used that one 30 years ago,” Isoko said, grinning.

“What was the outcome?” Mark asked, fully invested.

Eliot laughed. “It’s safe to say that it did not happen!”

Mark briefly felt embarrassed—

Isoko told him, “It was this whole storyline cooked up by the Hero/Villain Program, one of the Big Storylines, if you know what those are—”

“I do not,” Mark said.

Isoko said, “A supervillain threatens to blow up the sun, and it’s like a multi-stage story that happens over a whole season, with hero candidates coming in and fighting and failing, usually. The story can change depending on who wins in certain areas and stuff like that, and at the end of the 9-month season the hero candidates either win or lose.”

“… Wait.” Mark asked, “How does a supervillain ‘win’? Is that even possible?”

Isoko laughed. “Grandma would say it isn’t possible, because they just bring out Glorious Man to clean up the plot if it ever gets that bad.”

Eliot smirked. “How would a supervillain blow up the sun in one season and then have the world still exist in the next season?”

Mark got the sudden impression that Eliot and Isoko were referencing something specific. He had watched the movies like everyone else, but he didn’t know what they were talking about.

Isoko rolled her eyes. “Grandma really wanted to win that one. She got close! They were in talks about it a lot, about how they’d do it. It would have been a lot of special effects and people playing parts like they’re real. Like that Empire of Foodstuffs game, but less AI constrained.”

“That’s neat,” Mark said, feeling oddly comfortable with that idea.

“Yup,” Isoko said, “A lot less stressful than hunting monsters for real.”

Eliot smiled as he said, “If you’re stressing out on a monster hunt then you’re doing it wrong.”

“What!” Mark said, suddenly uncomfortable. “You cannot mean that.”

Isoko lost some of her composure, too. “I heard you were reckless, but tell me you’re not that relaxed out on the field, Eliot.”

Eliot scoffed. “I’m gonna show you a good trick that I bet neither of you know about.” He pulled out his phone, and then he sort of pulled off a part of the phone, like he pulled off a bit of flickering putty. “My Talent is Man-made Manipulation, yeah?” He pulled the putty into a thin pair of glasses that he buffed up larger. He handed it over to Mark, and then he made another one for Isoko. “Here you go. Neither of you will be able to break them without directly trying to break them, so please don’t try. They’re not that strong… Well? Put ‘em on!”

Mark looked at the glasses for a moment… And then he put them on.

And suddenly, he saw differently. Numbers appeared when he looked at Isoko, and then back at Eliot. Scanner numbers. Eliot was at tier 3 Arch, and tier 1 everything else. Isoko was at tier 2 Body, and, oh, tier 2 everything else, too? Huh. Platinum Body must be doing that for her—

“Field Scan for non-human signatures,” Eliot said.

And the view changed. Almost all numbers vanished, leaving behind just… nothing, really.

Mark looked around.

Isoko looked around.

Mark asked, “So that’s very impressive, but there’s nothing showing up right now?”

Isoko said, “I don’t see anything either.”

“And that’s a good thing,” Eliot said, “People scan.”

The readout changed completely, and now Mark saw faint outlines around every person around him, as well as a little arrows at the side of his view. As he turned, those arrows resolved into people, and as he turned more, those outlines became arrows again, indicating nearby people just out of sight.

“Oh shit,” Mark said, “This is amazing.”

Isoko breathed deep, and said, “This is why the Cybersongs are a noble house of Freyala. I had heard that you could do something like this, but not… this.” She looked all around. “This is… a lot.”

Mark asked Isoko, “Platinum Body gives you resistances in every single category?”

Isoko laughed. “Yes. I thought I told you this?”

“I didn’t realize that it meant your Body tier was your tier in everything.” Mark looked at his own hands, and saw his outline. He was tier 2 Natural and tier 1 everything else. “Can you scan actual Power Level?”

Eliot said, “Not yet. Working on that. It’s a lot more invasive to do that and it’s usually not necessary, anyway.” He snapped his fingers and the glasses flowed off of Mark’s and Isoko’s faces, back to his phone, to rejoin what was there and fill out what had been lost. “And so! You can see why I said that stressing out on a monster hunt is doing it wrong. If you’re not out in the field with a proper scout, then you’re just gonna die.” He looked to Mark. “Union can do some of this, but not nearly as well as I can. I know Paladins get that application of Union. Not sure what actual-Union can do.”

“I have a private tutor, Inquisitor Lola. Lola is great. I’ll probably learn how to scan for nearby people soon enough. I’m moving over to Healing Club on Monday, too, so they might talk about it there.”

“You’re dropping out of Sparring Club?” Isoko asked. “Right before we get to start using weapons?”

“I'm getting torn apart out there, and I don’t think using weapons will matter.”

“Brawnies are fucking crazy, so I don’t blame you,” Eliot said, grinning.

Isoko scoffed. “We’re only that crazy when we have dedicated healers.”

Mark grinned.

The conversation meandered, and it was nice.

Eventually, Mark exchanged information with Eliot and also with Isoko, since the three of them were going on a training mission together. Mark wasn’t sure exactly when that had been decided, but it was happening. The party lasted for several more hours, with Mark splitting up from Isoko and Eliot at Eliot’s suggestion, because a lot of people still wanted to talk to him.